The Person at the Centre of Cultural Dialogue

Abstract

In this article, the author reflects on contemporary cultural challenges to the notion of person understood for his or her own dignity, and not in dependence upon external attributes that inevitably are arbitrary. The author proposes that a rediscovery of the theological genealogy of the category of person can facilitate an authentic recovery of the absolute value of the person without taking from the equally intangible value of his or her autonomy and freedom that in such a perspective are always to be considered to be structurally relational, in other words, viewed within a network of relations that mark everyone’s life. Viewing the category of person in this way, it is possible to grasp the constitutive relationship of the person not only with culture, without which no human being can become fully human or fully a person, but also with dialogue since the interior nature of the person is dialogical and this lies at the basis of the interpersonal dialogue in which every human being is located and called to develop.